My Own List Of Twitter Don’ts

There are alot of sites touting the do’s and don’ts of Twitter. These are usually pretty generic and, in my humble opinion, full of common sense that we all should already possess. However, I see some things that happen on twitter that should be adressed.

Spamming then claiming it’s not spam. Ok seriously, if your posting the same tweet repeatedly throughout the day…you are spamming. One tweeter claimed s/he wanted to make sure to hit all the time zones of her/his followers. Ok, but two or at most three of the same tweet per day will reach your followers in all the time zones. Anything more than that is spam. Admit it, accept it, then stop. It ruins the engagement of what Twitter is supposed to be about. If you really want to post ads that reach across time zones, create a newsletter that people can sign up for. Than you will find out who really IS interested in your ad.

Question me on why I don’t follow back, even threaten to unfollow me. Everyone has their own method of following people. I follow the “quality not quantity” rule. Just because you follow me doesn’t mean that I MUST follow you. Sorry, there are no laws that say I have to. If you follow me, I will read your stream. I look for engagement. I typically don’t follow people who tweet and never @reply to anyone. I also read the content of your tweets. If you have something that sparks interest in me, I will follow. Ads and constant chatter about your business pretty much are a turnoff for me. That doesn’t mean I don’t follow businesses, the ones I follow talk to me about things other than business. Now if you are someone whom I have not followed back, threatening me with “I will unfollow” makes me laugh. Bully tactics never work with me. So don’t waste your time trying to bully me.

Telling me we have something in common means I shouldn’t unfollow you. I really don’t unfollow people much. You have to be doing something that really bugs me. And if I say “hey, your doing this and it bothers me” don’t respond with ” But I am mom blogger/pagan/knitter/local/anycommongroundwehave”. I go right back to, I followed you because I thought you had something great to say. I am a very eclectic person and look through who I follow and you see a wide variety of people. Don’t take it personally if I unfollow you for something that is what you want to do. I mean you have the right to tweet how you wish, I also have the right to see what I want in my stream. Telling me “By the way, I am a witch” has no effect on my decision. No, I take that back. I will be quicker to unfollow.

Tweeting alot about your sexual desires of another Tweeter whom your dating/married/daydreaming about. I recently unfollowed someone for this. Sure people get into nasty discussions or whatnot. But when you start describing your mate (whom is a tweeter) to a borderline porno status…..it’s time for you to go. I totally get the voyeurism thing, but make sure that the people you seek out to engage with are into it as well. I was taken by surprise because this particular follower was conservative and most of her stream was political, at the time I chose to follow. Even worse was using hashtags to describe her mate in a racial way. It became a point where she was flaunting her relationship with someone outside her race. That’s not something I like seeing. First off you should NEVER see your mate as someone of a race but as an individual. I don’t run around talking about my #hottiecaucasianlovah. Because when I look at him he isn’t caucasian, he is my sweetheart. Racial slurs don’t go away until we STOP referring to people by their race. Secondly, this person was falsely claiming things about her mate in regards to his race. Newsflash….a man can be well endowed of any race. And just because a man is well endowed, doesn’t mean he is fantastic in bed. It’s how you work the equipment that matters. Just saying.

Let’s share the same language! I can speak a handful of Spanish and even a bit of German. But nothing kills me more than when I get a new follower and they are from another country speaking another language. Look, I am not trying to be rude….but how can we talk if we don’t understand each other? And right now I cannot take classes to learn Russian, Finnish, and perfect my Spanish and my German. If you are bilingual, great! That would be wonderful and I welcome tiny lessons in your language as well. But if you aren’t bilingual, for now let’s hold off on the following….shall we?

So for my fellow Twitter peeps, did I miss anything?